Jiffy Peat Pellets Will They Ever Disappear?
A few years ago I bought quite a few of the Jiffy Professional Greenhouse's with 72 pellets thinking they were a good and clean way to grow seedlings. I thought they were made of a product that was biodegradable and should decompose within a year or at least be gone when the plants were pulled up in the fall. When we didn’t see any pellet remains attached to the roots we thought they had decomposed. However, pellets that were planted 3 and 4 years ago keep showing up with the netting looking intact. It seems that when the plants were pulled up the pellets stayed behind which should not happen if the roots are supposed to be able to grow through the netting. It looks like a lot of plant roots couldn’t break through. We decided not to use them this year but we don’t want to just throw them out. Next year we had considered maybe trying to remove or cut the netting before transplanting the seedlings but then the soil would fall off the roots or the roots could get damaged and that would also defeat the convenience of using the pellets in the first place.
Almost a month ago, I called the company that makes Jiffy Professional Greenhouse 72 and was given an email address to contact with my questions (what kind of material is the netting made of and why hasn't it decomposed after all this time?). A week ago I followed up with a voice message after getting transferred by their receptionist but have yet to receive a response to either query.